FCC Free Wireless Spectrum Equals Censorship Technology Bonanza

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FCC Free Wireless Spectrum Equals Censorship Technology Bonanza

The Federal Communications Commission is seeking comments on a proposal to open up a swath of spectrum to provide free wireless internet – one of the FCC's "goals of achieving the universal availability of broadband access."

But as with all free things, there's a hitch. The winner of the spectrum, 25 percent of which must be available for free internet access, is required to filter out pornography and "any images or text that otherwise would be harmful to teens and adolescents."

The filtering device, "a network-based mechanism," as the FCC calls it, "must be active at all times" on that free service. The connection would have laudable surfing speeds with "engineered data rates of at least 768 kbps downstream."

But it's unclear what would be left to surf under the censorship rules, a question that leads us here at Threat Level to suggest there's more here than meets the eye.

The required filtering mechanism, according to the FCC, is one "that filters or blocks images and text that constitute obscenity or pornography and, in context, as measured by contemporary community standards and existing law, any images or text that otherwise would be harmful to teens and adolescents. For purposes of this rule, teens and adolescents are children 5 through 17 years of age."

We at Threat Level suspect this broad censorship plan has little to do with government morals and government opposition to underwriting the delivery of pornography into America's living rooms. It's more likely the censorship rules are crafted to minimize opposition from ISPs, which would certainly go bust if there were a free, uncensored internet.

More important, however, to comport with the censorship rules, the spectrum would become a playground for real-world testing of filtering, throttling, eavesdropping and other protocols, a platform whose users, most likely the poor, are its guinea pigs.

Here is a copy of the proposal, FCC-158, (.pdf) which includes information where to send comments.